chapter 16. Shattered memories.

The grief was a living thing now.
Heavy.
Animal.
Clawing at the inside of his ribs as if it wanted out.

He looked down at the mound of frozen blue powder—
what used to be his daughter laughing, choosing dresses, teasing him.
A memory so vivid only moments ago…
now dust.

He lowers himself, hands shaking as he gathers the powder with cupped palms.
It is so cold it burns.
So fragile that even his breath threatens to scatter it.

He pulls it to his chest.

And hugs it.

He presses the little crystalline remains against his sternum as though warmth could return to either of them.
As if holding tight enough could force memory to rewind.
As if grief could bargain with time.

“Just one more day…”
his voice trembles out, or tries to.
Ice cracks across his tongue; only a broken whisper escapes.

And then—
softly—
the melody returns.

Her melody.

Time flows
Nobody knows
The years go by
Where we go… alone… from here…

He sobs against the powder, the sound muffled in his frozen hands.
The lyrics echo through the cabin like a lullaby played through the walls of heaven itself.

He cries until his body trembles so violently that flakes of ice fall from his shoulders and knees.
He holds her remains until his fingers go stiff and numb.
He holds her because letting go would mean accepting she’s gone.

But then—

Another voice.

Faint.
Gentle.
Coming from across the room.

He lifts his head.

It’s the second statue—
the one brushing her hair in front of the frost-covered mirror.

Her voice echoes softly, distant as a dream:

“Daddy… can you braid it this time? The way mommy did?”

A strangled sound breaks out of him.
His breath fogs in long, painful plumes.
He stands on shaking legs.

He knows what’s happening.

This house—this realm—
is leading him from one death to the next,
one memory to another,
piece by piece
until he shatters too.

He stumbles toward the second statue.
His knees nearly buckle.
The ice underfoot cracks like old bones.

And then—
something catches his eye.

A beam of light.

Pale.
Blue.
Sharp as a blade.

It shines through the frost-covered window where the other statue—the solemn one with hands on the glass—stands frozen, facing inward toward someone unseen.

The beam hits the floor at a perfect angle, slicing through shadow.

His mind cracks open with realization.

The music box—
still frozen under a hood of darkness—
could be reached by light.

The darkness is literally smothering the song.
The realm wants it quiet.
Wants the grief sealed.

But light…
light bends.

His eyes drift down to the shard of mirror in his palm—
the one left behind when the first statue crumbled.

And then to the other mirrors in the room.
Frosted.
Broken.
But framed.
Fixable.

If he collects enough shards…
If he angles them just right…
he could reflect that single beam of light
back to the music box.

He could save the melody.
Save her memory.
Save himself.

But he knows the cost.

Because each mirror is guarded by a statue.
Each statue holds a memory.
Each memory will shatter into dust.

And he will have to watch every one of them die.

His punishment for leaving his sunrise.

He looks at the shard in his hand.
Then at the beam of blue light.
And then at his daughter, frozen mid–brush stroke, forever brushing her long green hair.

He exhales.
The sound is hollow.
Broken.
But determined.

“Okay…” he whispers.
“Show me… the rest.”
---------

He stumbles toward the vanity, the frost biting at his knees.

The little statue sits still, brush caught mid-stroke—caught in time.
But her voice hums softly in the air, not from her mouth, but from the walls… from the past…

She’s making herself pretty.
Brushing the weeds and dandelion fluff from her hair—
wildflowers always tangled in the green strands.

His sweet little wildling.
She always refused to cut it.

He leans against the frosted vanity and lets the warmth of memory wash over him.

"You look beautiful," he murmurs, just as he once did.
"But then, a ragamuffin on Tuesday."

A pause.
Then her little voice, rich with indignation.

"Wwwhhhaaaat?"
Overly dramatic. Hilariously betrayed.

He chuckles in the echo, already remembering what comes next.

"Never seen a Ragamuffin on Tuesday?" he teased.

The voice in the memory pouts. “What’s a Ragamuffin on Tuesday?”

He grinned in real time, despite the ache in his chest.
“The same as a Ragamuffin on Monday.”

There was a beat—

Then her shriek-laugh filled the air.
She called him “silly.”
Again.
And again.

He places his ice-cracked fingers on the frozen vanity.

"Darling," he whispers, "what were you humming?"

The memory continues, soft and proud.

“Oh! It’s what mama taught me. When I’m scared, or sleepy, or waiting for you…”

She clears her throat.
And the melody rises.
--------

The little voice lingers in the air like the smell of fresh grass—still bright, still blooming, even as frost begins to eat at the edges of the statue’s hair.

(Here in the garden, let's play a game
I'll show you how it's done)

His echo hums in agreement—“What a pretty tune.”

She keeps brushing, legs swinging gently beneath the stool. Her tiny voice dances with the memory.

(Here in the garden, stand very still
This’ll be so much fun)

He leans closer, smiling despite the ache.

“When did mommy teach you this?”
His voice, the ghost’s voice, so soft. A father’s gentle ache.

“Oh! On a sunny day! The day we picked the big melon for you!”
Her little body wiggled excitedly in the echo.

“Bigger than—”
She scrunches her face, switches to a snarling gremlin-voice:
“—Big ol’ Head! >:)”

He laughs out loud, now and then. The warmth of it almost enough to melt the frost.

But—

The next verse doesn’t come from her.

No.

It comes from someone older.
Not the child. Not the mother.
Not even alive.

A voice—fragile, yet mournful.
A woman, long buried.
Her sorrow floods the cabin like a silent tide.

(See? Now the game is won.
Nothing like it when you and I are fun…)

He turns toward the vanity—

But the statue is no longer there.

Just frost.
A single broken shard of mirror.

And beside it—

A photo, facedown.

Still dusted in snow.
But it’s waiting.
----

The moment he flips the photo over, time seems to catch its breath.

A soft flutter, like old paper breaking the stillness of a frozen museum.

It’s a snapshot. Warmly lit. The focus blurry at the edges but clear at heart.

An albino cat girl—wild hair in white tufts, too much love crammed into too small a frame—has her arms locked around the neck of a tired-looking gray-skinned man. Her lips are squished against his cheek, and though his face is shocked, his hands are mid-air in surrender—his body helplessly giving in to affection.

They look like idiots.
Happy idiots.

And so in love.

He stares at it for too long.
Too long.

Something curls in his stomach.
Something longing.

Wife.
Daughter.
Laughter.
All of it, gone.
And yet… still here?

A whisper of music trickles in from the background again—no longer confined to the ballerina box.
It comes from the walls now.
From the very boards.

(As thousands of years go by
Happily wondering, night after night
Is this how it works? Am I doing it right)

He doesn’t move.
Can’t.
That voice wasn’t his daughter. Not this time.

This was someone else.
The girl in the photo?

A hush falls.
Not silence—a hush. Like the quiet of a child who’s stopped crying. Not healed—just too tired to make a sound.

And then, something snaps.
The very color of the room changes.

That photo… overpowers the grief.

The cold blue begins to dull.
And gray returns.
The original gray. Bleached sorrow.
The color of dust on unopened letters.

But something’s different.

The ceiling, the floor—little pinpricks of light scatter and dance across it, like a disco ball, somewhere unseen. Tiny stars twirling in soft rhythm, spinning ever so faintly.

A place not of life, but memory.
A graveyard of joy.

(Finally something, finally news
About how the story ends)

He clutches the photo.

(She doesn't exist now—
Isn't that lovely? Isn't that cool?
And isn't that cruel? And... aren't I a fool to have?)

His hands tremble.
His eyes sting.

This wasn’t just someone else’s sorrow.
This was his warning.

A cold paw of fate sliding along his neck.

*(Happily listened… happily stayed… watching him…)
(…drift… away.)

The lights dim.
The cat girl’s voice gone.

Only the sound of breath remains—his.
And somewhere, in the shadows behind him—
--------

He kneels again, the photo still warm in his hand, like it remembered love.

The tiny lights from nowhere still dance around him—stubborn, like dust refusing to settle. The song has faded, but its aftertaste lingers. His breath fogs in the air, a slow exhale trembling from a chest full of snow.

He glances down.
The floor beneath him is wood again. Old, gray, creaking with memory.
Around him, the walls shift—only here, only now. Four feet by four feet. A perfect bubble.

Everything inside this field is the Cabin as it once was.
The one before.
Sad. Wounded. Haunted.
But real.

Everything outside this small halo… remains the Frozen Grief.

Crystalline white.
A tomb of sorrow.
The statues. The ice. The suffocating blue.
His punishment.

His eyes flick to the vanity mirror, now just a memory—gone in the gray.
But he remembers the girl brushing her hair.
He remembers the sound of her humming.

And at his side, on the floor—two sharp-edged fragments of glass.
Mirror shards.
Both still gleaming. Both heavy with memory.

He holds one up to the tiny stars above him.
It reflects them, just barely. Twinkling fragments in the void.

A puzzle…

He breathes the thought, not like a man with hope, but like a ghost who’s just remembered how to try.

He looks around the room again.
The light beams from the window—the one near the statue of the girl with her hand on the glass—were stronger outside this gray realm. Bright, golden. Magical, even. As if trying to guide him.
But the mirrors only exist in the Frozen Grief.

So—

To reflect the light, he needs the mirrors.
But to see the path clearly, he needs the photo.

Move the photo,
Bring the light.
Angle the shards.
Piece by piece…

His own logic, felt like scratching through wallpaper. Faint. Brittle.
But enough.

His hand tightens around the photograph.

This... might work.

The cabin groans faintly.
Not from wind.

But from the weight of a story beginning to wake up.

And as the final note of the lost song echoes in his head…

the next memory calls.
And he is not ready.
But he stands anyway.